Lawsuit threatened over funding

Member of governor's commission says he may file action if state spending isn't raised

By Scott Waldman

Updated 9:50 pm, Friday, October 4, 2013

Albany

A member of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's education overhaul commission said he may bring a lawsuit against the state if it fails to increase public school funding by billions of dollars.

In addition to his service on the governor's panel, Michael Rebell is the attorney who brought the successful Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit in which courts found the state underfunded New York City public schools. After a 13-year fight, Rebell won a $7 billion increase in state education funding as a result of the landmark case, which affirmed a student's right to a "sound, basic" education through high school.

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The state delayed a large chunk of the payments following the 2008 financial crisis.

At a Rockefeller Institute panel on Friday focused on school districts' fiscal challenges, Rebell said he was waiting for the commission's final report to be issued to see if another lawsuit is necessary. He believes the report, due in December, needs to recommend that the state significantly increase funding to schools.

"Our time is running out; we have not dealt with that issue in any real way," he said in an interview after the panel. "If the (state Education Commissioner John King) and the governor are not dealing forthrightly with this, I think the courts will have to take it up."

Rebell is a Columbia University professor and executive director of the Campaign for Educational Equity, a Columbia-based nonprofit organization that pushes to equalize educational opportunity. His group released a 2012 study that found students in New York City and seven high-needs school districts around the state were being taught by ineffective teachers, receiving minimal instructional time, were not provided necessary books and technology, and attended schools in poor condition. The group found the students did not "receive the extra learning time and supports they are entitled to under state statutes and regulations."

Cuomo did insert a number of the commission's initial findings in the state budget, including an expansion of full-day pre-kindergarten, enhanced learning time and community schools for high-needs districts. But the relatively tiny total funding of $75 million only affects a few thousand of New York's 3 million schoolchildren.

Overall state education spending tops $21 billion this year.

The commission's real work, Rebell said, will be finding a way to give relief to the districts where kids don't receive the same opportunities as their peers in wealthier areas.

"For five years, we've been cutting money, and not seeing what affect it's having on the kids — that's unacceptable," he said.

Rebell said that the state should be paying $4 billion more this year. He said he understands that increase is too large, but expects the state to make up more than $1 billion of the gap.

At the Friday panel, E.J. McMahon of the fiscally conservative Empire Center pointed out that New York spends more than $19,000 per pupil, almost double the national average of $10,560.

"We have larger staffs and we pay them more," he said. "That's the principal reason we spend so much more."